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What does IKEA's name stand for?
It combines the founder's initials with his family farm and village.
IKEA is an acronym made from the initials of founder Ingvar Kamprad plus two places from his boyhood: Elmtaryd, the farm where he grew up, and Agunnaryd, the nearby village in the Smaland region of Sweden. The company's own history page gives the registration date as 28 July 1943, when Kamprad was 17.
IKEA did not begin with furniture. According to the company's history, Kamprad started by importing items such as pens, watches and nylon stockings, and he sold by mail order. Furniture was added to the range in 1948, and the business later developed its well-known cost-cutting approach, including selling items in compact pieces for customers to assemble. The first showroom opened in the 1950s in Almhult, which remains an important location for the firm.
The name has a practical advantage: it is short, easy to pronounce in many languages, and has no meaning in most of them. Statements about the exact chronology, such as when the first catalogue appeared or when flat-pack began, vary between sources, so they are best checked against IKEA's own timeline. The company says its goal is to offer well-designed home furnishings at prices low enough that as many people as possible can afford them.